The Global Sustainable Aquaculture Roadmap: Pathways for Systemic Change

The Global Sustainable Aquaculture Roadmap outlines a systems-change approach to scale aquaculture sustainably. It identifies four critical pathways: responsible production to mitigate climate and biodiversity impacts; better livelihoods to address gender and age inequalities; healthy consumption to improve global access to nutritious blue foods; and an enabling environment to coordinate data, partnerships, and investment. The roadmap emphasizes the role of small-scale actors and the need for collaborative action across value chains to meet 2030 sustainability goals.

• Global aquaculture production is projected to grow significantly, with the FAO estimating it will reach 106 million metric tonnes by 2030, representing a 32% increase from 2020 levels.
• Responsible production requires transitioning to nature-positive solutions, such as integrated agriculture-aquaculture systems and the farming of low-trophic species like oysters and mussels, to reduce environmental runoff and the overreliance on wild-caught forage fish.
• The aquaculture sector suffers from systemic inequalities where small-scale actors bear disproportionate market risks, and women—who make up approximately half of the workforce—are often concentrated in the lowest-paid, least stable segments and excluded from decision-making.
• Improving global nutrition requires increasing the availability and affordability of diverse blue foods, specifically promoting lower-trophic species that are more sustainable and carbon-neutral.
• A robust enabling environment is necessary to support the sector, requiring the development of open-source datasets, the use of blended finance to de-risk innovation for SMEs, and the implementation of ESG criteria to stimulate private investment.

APA

World Economic Forum (2023). The Global Sustainable Aquaculture Roadmap: Pathways for Systemic Change. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Aquaculture_Roadmap_2023.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. The Global Sustainable Aquaculture Roadmap: Pathways for Systemic Change. 2023. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Aquaculture_Roadmap_2023.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=The Global Sustainable Aquaculture Roadmap: Pathways for Systemic Change |date=March 2023 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Aquaculture_Roadmap_2023.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2023global, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{The Global Sustainable Aquaculture Roadmap: Pathways for Systemic Change}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2023}, month = mar, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Aquaculture_Roadmap_2023.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }